Unions have finally recognized that the only person who will work with unions and support new and better laws for workers is Bernie Sanders. He is probably our only chance for unions to grow and unions can reclaim their lost territory.
We may even get a national card check in place where 51 percent of workers want a union the company or corporation must start negotiations with the workers. This keeps companies from dragging out the process and bringing in union busters. The unions now need to really get behind Sanders with their support, boots on the ground and ask union members to vote for him and consider donating $27 to Sander’s campaign.
Healthcare for all or Medicare for all that covers dental, eyes, hearing and mental health with no out of pocket money will help union workers and owners. If healthcare was universal, unions can bid jobs better against nonunion shops. The unions need more union schools to send members to and union retreats for union families so all union members and their families can learn about union and workers rights, laws and labor history of all unions and the lives that were lost to earn the eight-hour work day, pensions, and child labor laws.
This fight for our very lives and all union members must be educated on how to stand up and take the fight to the streets and anti-union people. Families who fight together stay together, and unions become stronger ones that are not union. Union workers should consider running for local public office, whether it’s on a school board or fire board or water board or a city council or a county board and even state elected office. This would give the member a two-fold opportunity by ensuring unions are protected at whatever entity their elected to and the destructive cuts and management skills are conducted for the betterment of the agency, not political ignorance.
Unions should expect their elected or hired representatives to attend all city council and board of supervisors meetings just to let the elected officials know what unions are doing in our labor councils. In my local labor council, we represent five counties with about 10,000 members. Our elected people show know this.
We are engaged in a class warfare and it will be fought at the ballot box or in the streets, either way we need educated people who know how to fight and also know their history. If you know yourself and know your enemy, you will win most of your battles. Our enemy comes from a common place, greed and control, and they don’t belong to just one political party. We have our work cut out for us.
Unions’ long game is to get all union contracts to expire on the same day nationwide. The United Auto Workers combines contracts ends on April 28, 2028. This could then result in a mass national strike starting on May Day beeginning that year. This could then put enormous pressure on employers, but also on lawmakers. It’s the muscle and sweat of the workers that keeps this country great, not the individual company or corporations. This May Day strike would be the time to change the workers’ world for the better by negotiating for a 32-hour week with the same pay, and the U.S. adopts a healthcare for all with no out of pocket costs. This would also help the employers as they would no longer have to provide healthcare. By striking, the UAW won same pay for new workers, all UAW contracts will end on the same date, a 25-percent pay increase, a cost of living adjustments, a guaranteed right to strike over potential plant closures, and also the right to vote to unionize through the card che
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